The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-09-03
SUMMER-TIDE SPLEND0R.
BEAUTY AND GRACE PROMINENT
LY TO THE FRONT.

The New Dispensation Of the Corset
The Corselette-Heaith and Free
dom Versus the Ancient Straight
Jacket-"How They do it in France"
Clothing as an Exponent of Civili-
cation 49, Development of Personal
Purity - It's Especial Expression in
Observation-Disclosures Birds With IN
plumed Wings Summer
Styles Reception Costumes-Some
Recent Examples--Sensible Costumes
for Early Autumn-New Materials
Plain Stuffs-Plaid Woods Elastic
Cloths.
NEW YORK, Sept. 2.-This has been a sea-
son of infinite variety and exceeding charm,
as far as the dressing of women is concerned.
Whatever skill and taste have developed of
softness and delicacy, of color and design
seem to have been pressed into service for
the adjoining of the young and beautiful
and those that are neither-in country
houses and seaside or mountain resorts.
The unusual heat of the midsummer
brought out all the resources in the way of
cottons and muslins, linens and foulards
and made our fashionable resorts more
English" than ever before by the display
of cotton gowns upon the promenades and
straw hats with muslin or ribbon and flower
trimming.
The infusion of bright and delicate color
into summer street dress has done much to
break up the neutral monotony which for
merly held us in strong grasp, while the
absence of wraps from summer costumes,
and the happy touches which the introduc-
ton of the west" has suggested, permit the
full display of all the lghtnesS, grace and
finish of modern artistic dress. There is
nothing now that is convenient, nothing
that is pretty and becoming that woman
cannot wear No one need be bound by
any limits or any authority but those of her
own Judgment taste and length of purse.
Daily, some idea, custom or tradition,
which seemed deep-rooted, is overruled, or
some development takes place which solves
problem.
1t is not more than wear since it was diff
ficult to get a fashionable dressmaker to
consider the possibilities of full sleeve, or
since one lady remarked that she, at least,
would never be brought to wear them; yet
she is sailing about to-day in voluminous
"leg-of-mutton" in delicate batiste, with
white, embroidered cuffs, and really be-
lieves that she has always admired them.
The vexed question of the corset is being
settled in very satisfactory way; not by
getting rid of it, but by varying and adapt
ing it to different needs and temperatures.
For the first time, it is possible to have the
waist sustained without compression and
with entire absence of any sense of re-
stTaint.
The corselette, or little "rest" corset,
sometimes called the breakfast" corset is
pnlxr aIontaJ m clandar on6 10 in
formal styles of dress; but it is an untold
comfort for warm weather and for house
wear, either in winter or summer. Our
corset makers are also beginning to exercise
more care and discrimination in the selec-
ton of material and their use. Women are
themselves, responsible for the immense
number of brutal corSets put upon the mar
ket and baited to catch the unwary, for
they choose them ready made at the shops,
as they do hosiery, and rarely buy two of
the same manufacture.
French women manage this much better
They possess nothing of the grace, delicacy,
lightneSs and natural beauty of form which
characterizes the average American, but
they develop and preserve more symmetry
and better health, largely by strict atten-
ton to the accurate form and excellence of
the corset from the time the girl begins to
wear one. A French mother would not
uredh Vi buying coTSeC TeduN -Hldue LOT
her young daughter, or a straight, corded,
unhexible waist. She takes the girl to a
corsetiere and has her measured. Her
figure is not compressed. it is directed
Lungs, heart, muscles, are allowed full play
Her corset is an aid TO her development,
not hindrance. The girl grows up realiz-
ing the. necessity for pliancy and elegance
and accuracy in her corset, if she is to secure
elegance and distinction of dress and APP
pearance. But you never see a spider waist
emphasized by an exaggerated tournure
upon a French woman.
There are now many kinds of thin and
flexible corsetS and corset waists which have
more or less claim to attention; but they
ought never to be taken at random. A cor
selette, or breakfast waist, does not need
fitting: but q regular corsett for dress pur-
poses, or over which street dresses and cos
TUNES are to be worn, should be made and
fitted like a dress bodice from actual meas
urements by skilled maker, Of a material
fine and firm, yet yielding and soft to the
touch.
SUMMER DAINTINESS.
August has been delightful month in
which to display toiletteS which show
brighter contrasts and greater delicacy of
tint than are usually seen upon city streets.
The rains and heat of July gave place to a
clearness and GOODNESS of atmosphere, which
carried no touch of chilliness and demanded
no warmth of clothing; but only brought
out whatever of beauty it possessed, and
made it more pleasurable. We probably
require little experience of the primitive
man and woman: their darkness, their
coarsenesS, their savagery, their ignorance
Of cleanliness and utter absence of beauty
to realize in any adequate manner the dis
lance which lies between barbarism and civ
ilization, and how important an adjunct and
corollary clothes are of civilization.
II we can once realize this, we shall
know that reforms can never carry the
cultivated man and woman backward, that
the tendency is to greater refinement, a
wider adaptation, more specialized function
and fitness for function; but no reduction of
essential forms or objects that go to make
up that wonderful product of the nineteenth
century-a well-bred and thoroughly
equipped man or woman.
Every day we are becoming cleaner
Every day it is becoming more possible to
live in an atmosphere of purity and dainti-
ness, which even a few years ago would
have been deemed Utopian and every day
marks general advance towards the ex-
quisite fineness and delicacy which is even
now recognized as the hall mark of high
breeding.
This refinement expresses itself, particu-
larry in the care expended upon underwear,
in its texture, perfection of form, beauty of
workmanship, avoidance of the unevenness
even of seams, the wrought edges with
worked eyelets for narrow, pale pink, ca
nary or cream colored ribbons and RULED